Lawyer Donald Kipkorir for Kenya Pipeline Company which Public Procurement Board has declines to order to sign mega aviation contract.
BY SAM ALFAN.
The procurement board will not order Kenya Pipeline Company to sign a Sh8 billion contract to construct a fuel depot for aeroplanes at JKIA.
Public Procurement Board would like first to understand why the contract was signed over a year later to an international consortium.
The consortium had been awarded the tender on May 18 2015 but was signed in 2016.
The project was dubbed the Greenfield.
The consortium is made up of four companies; Danish-listed JGH Marine and a subsidiary of the China National Petroleum Corporation, Northeastern refining and Chemical Engineering Company.
Other firms in the consortium are Western Marine Services and Pride Enterprises.
Civicon Limited and the consortium participated in the November 2014 open tender.
Through Lawyer Donald Kipkorir, Kenya Pipeline Company, the procuring entity however opposed the request for review.
KPC stated that the request was frivolous, vexatious and an abuse of process of the board.
Mr Kipkorir submitted that the applicant could not force Kenya Pipeline to sign a contract for a project that no longer existed.
The land where the development was to be executed is owned by the Kenya Airways Authority which cancelled the Greenfield project.
Mr Kipkorir said that it then follows that the tender could not be performed since the owner of the land was not willing to go on with the parent project.
The Board further set aside the Kenya Pipeline decision terminating the procurement process as communicated to the international consortium’s letter dated August 24 this year.
Immediately after award, one of the unsuccessful bidders M/s Civicon limited instituted a request for review which upon consideration directed that the tender be awarded to Civicon limited.
The current applicant-the International consortium which was the successful bidder was dissatisfied with the reviews board’s decision and instituted a case at the high court which quashed the board’s earlier decision and remitted the request for review back to the board for re-hearing and for final determination.
